Malcolm Knox and Adrian Proszenko

Few players have earned the tag of "Origin footballer" as quickly and surely as has Greg Bird. Since winning man-of-the-match honours in his second and third Origin games, back in 2007 and 2008, Bird has consistently risen to his best on this stage.

Veteran forward Greg Bird will return to the starting side for Origin II on Wednesday after missing the series opener because of suspension. Photo: James Brickwood

His toughness and skill have been blue beacons in the darkness. If there was an irony in NSW's victory in game one this year, it was that they played in the style of the man who, due to suspension, spent the night jumping up and down in his seat at Lang Park, finding another way to annoy Queenslanders.

So does Bird himself, on the eve of his return in game two, think there is such a thing as an "Origin footballer"?

Cooling off: NSW back-rower Greg Bird soothes his aching muscles after a training run at the Blues’ Coffs Harbour base during the week. Photo: Getty Images

"There are distinctive attributes that make people better at this style of game," he says. "The relentless, aggressive attitude ... It’s not a cool or clinical atmosphere. You can't do the things that you do at club level. It's a battle, and you’ve got to play that way."

This is Bird the warrior, the familiar, the Bird in the hand, the "bruise brother" whose aggressive drive to win has given him frequent flyer status at the NRL judiciary and, by his own admission, "is not always pretty". This is the Bird who not only withstands the attempts at intimidation when playing Queensland but laps it up.

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"I've seen players get intimidated, but I enjoy it. The extra fire I get in my belly, I play on that. I enjoy the pain. I don't enjoy it after, but during the game I enjoy it, I rely on it. Pushing through it, it isn't the physical pain of the hits, it's the lack of energy when you feel you can't keep going, but you're telling yourself you can't do otherwise."

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Listen closely, and you can hear another Bird: an articulate speaker with a frank and thoughtful viewpoint. In the last eight years, Queensland have enjoyed a superiority in several departments, not least between the ears. You would back Cameron Smith, Greg Inglis, Johnathan Thurston and Cooper Cronk to finish the crossword faster than their NSW counterparts, and they have won by virtue of their clarity of thought under pressure.

On the Blues’ side, this is another thing that has made Bird stand out as an Origin footballer: when sometimes panicky and dumb decisions have been made, Bird always plays smart.

The scuttlebutt is that he is smart, that he was dux of Rutherford Technology High in Maitland and managed a universities admissionn index rating in the 80s, well above the NRL average, even while spending his HSC year running around with rep rugby league teams. That he enrolled in a medical science degree at the University of Western Sydney and might have wound up with a job in league administering painkillers, not pain.

Could Greg Bird actually be the smartest player in the NRL?

"Easily," he says. Then, recognising that not all leaguies might detect the irony, he backs off: "I'm definitely not the smartest in the NRL."

But that’s just the type of thing a smart person would say. League is not necessarily an environment in which you want to be known for brains, and Bird, by hastily covering up the evidence that he might be a highly intelligent human being, shows a self-deprecating thread that has run consistently since his schooldays. No sooner had Bird finished his HSC exams at Rutherford, performing impressively, than he was in trouble for a nude streak.

"It was a well-planned prank. We had a practice run. We had pick-up cars, pick-up and drop-off points. We had a course set out ... [We had] a cameraman. And a pick-up driver. And a drop-off driver. All who will remain anonymous.

"We both finished the course and covered pretty much every classroom in a nudie run. We had whistles to create attention, so people would come out into the hall. We had masks on to hide our identity, but we didn't do a very good job of that. I was pretty much the only guy at our school built like a football player. I sort of stood out."

There is a video which, Bird hopes, will never come out publicly (but he then adds: "It would be funny if it did.") He was not suspended from school, as has been reported, but was stopped from going to his end-of-year formal. "I thought it was worth it."

A more serious life experience came in 2008, when he was convicted on a charge of assaulting his then girlfriend. The conviction was later quashed by an appeal judge, who found there was no evidence Bird had committed the assault.

In the inner struggle between hoon and highbrow, maturity has brought the latter closer to the surface. Bird is clearly a leader, not just in name as captain of the Titans, but as an elite player whom others follow. Turning 30 this October, he is already sizing up post-football options: he part-owns a cafe, he is interested in assistant coaching and he has a program in the works to guide youngsters who, like himself, come from an indigenous background. There’s a lot going on inside that hard head. He is a deep thinker about the mental demands of Origin, and when he gets talking you can see why others listen.

"Concentration gets left out of a lot of the discussion when people are talking about defensive efforts, but it's one of the most important things. Not turning out on certain players, knowing players' strengths and weaknesses, knowing when Billy Slater's going to pop up on the inside and if you're not concentrating, if you stop for half a step, that creates enough space for him to slip through. In game three in 2008, when we had an opportunity to win a series, the smallest lapse in concentration on our right side let Thurston run through and set up a try. Keeping your concentration under fatigue and pressure from the community, the expectation of everyone watching, that's what makes the difference."

There, you might say, is also the essence of an Origin footballer: a brand of courage that is not just physical but mental. A tough nut and a clear head. An ability to put it into words. And maybe, too, for a player whose club career has never taken him to the grand final, a special pedestal for this particular contest. It's the concentration, it's the strength of mind and body, and it's also the desire.

"This is the be-all and end-all," Bird says. "This is my grand final."